How many times have you found yourself relentlessly scrolling through Instagram feed during the night and not being able to sleep despite the exhaustion and fatigue? Quite often, right?
After getting home, running through your skincare routine, and reading a chapter of your book, you are finally in bed. Your bed feels comfortable, but you can’t resist the temptation to open your mobile under the covers and scroll through the infinite feed of meaningless videos. Your eyes eventually start to close, and it’s past 5 AM. Despite your body’s need, some part of you is still unsatisfied and won’t let you sleep.
Well, this activity has a name, and it’s called Revenge Bedtime Procrastination.
What Is Revenge Bedtime Procrastination?
This condition is mostly found in millennials and means “sleepless night revenge.” It is the consequence of ever-growing attachment to the technologies, and the current Covid-19 pandemic is certainly oiling the fire of Revenge Bedtime Procrastination. What happens is that when we lack relaxation during the day, our body tries to find it in other places and at other times – even if it is achieved at the expanse of our sleep.
People are also struggling with Insmonia caused due to Covid-19 related stress. It’s called Coronasomnia. If you are also experiencing it, Here are 15 Tips to cope with Coronasomnia.
It’s quite comforting to know that the condition has the name, and you are not the only one staying awake late despite having dark circles under your eyes, just not being able to resist clicking on “watch next episode.” It is defined as a phenomenon where people who are not in control of their day-time life refuse to sleep to gain a sense of freedom in the late-night hours.
Are you reading this and thinking, “yup, this is me”? Then you are probably engaging in Revenge Bedtime Procrastination simply because either you don’t want the free time to end or tomorrow to start. Honestly, don’t we all want this?
Why do we do this?
A lot of people have children, double jobs, or unsetting home life, and that leads to a very busy day-time routine. People who do Revenge Bedtime Procrastination usually have their plates full during the day, and they make up for the lack of freedom by saying that “this is the only time we have to breathe.” We simply do it because we feel like that it’s the only free time we have, and we want to make the most of it without considering that it comes at the expanse of our sleep.
This late-time habit often leads to overthinking, anxiety, and panic attacks. What people ask is that “what’s wrong with it?” well, if we do need to cater to ourselves, why not do yoga, read a book, and engage in other less-toxic activities? Why burying our faces in the screens of laptops and mobiles is the only option we have got?
If we put our mobiles and technologies aside, the night is the only time when we are left alone with our thoughts and feelings. When we are afraid that we can meet with complicated and heavy thoughts and want to push them away, we use scrolling as a way out. Scrolling is a great way to keep things out of your mind that exhaust your brain to the point where you fall asleep without having to think about anything at all.
This is too honest and too accurate. However, what we don’t know is that avoidance is a trap that embraces you into a cycle of late-night anxiety.
What can we do to stop it?
Having a feeling that you have a little bit of free time for yourself is very important for your well-being. However, at the same time, many problems associated with Revenge Bedtime Procrastination, like feeling depressed and burned out, can be cured by just getting enough sleep. People are creating an infinite cycle by spending their leisure time on mobile and television. Getting sleep is important for your health, but it can also potentially break the relentless cycle of Revenge Bedtime Procrastination.
Often when having free time, we flop open our technologies and spend hours binge-watching the shows and scrolling mindlessly through social media. While instead of this, you could be talking to a friend, reading a book, and doing whatever excites you. If cooking makes you happy, cook a wholesome meal for yourself and savor it while watching half an episode of your favorite show. If you like to sketch, draw, paint, sing, do it.
We are not telling you to stop checking your social media sites. Just don’t do it past your actual free time. Once you get inside the covers, you need to sleep, however overwhelming the thoughts may become.